Full or partial entries of my blogs may be found at LatviansOnline http://latviansonline.com/forum/ + Forum Home + Open Forum – The 4th Awakening. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/, http://melnaysjanis.blogspot.com/, http://the-not-voter.blogspot.com/ or http://the4thawakening.blogspot.com/

I suggest you look at the links imbedded in these blogs or at the end of the blog as an integral part of my argument.

The 4^th Awakening

21 The Clerics Win a Pyrrhic Victory

The Herrnhuters were repressed to put a stop to rising self-consciousness among proto-Estonians and proto-Latvians.

While some historians say that the Herrnhuter movement came to a halt effective 1840 (due to running out of steam according to some), my great-grandfather and others kept it going in the Vidzeme part of Latvia. In my great-grandfather’s case, he kept the Herrnhuters active in the vicinity of Taurene, Bānūžu Manor, where he was manager. Interestingly, his title was not that of ‘vagars’, a name often associated with brutal overseers of farm workers, but ‘starasts’, the name distinguishing the bearer as one worthy to be ‘star east’ or the star of advent). Even after the inn he leased (Mūru krogs) was burnt down in the early 1860s and after he died (1868), he was remembered by the local people as starasts and his wife was referred to as the wife of starasts.

As I have mentioned in blog 8, the inn may not have burnt down (as told later) as a result of my great-grandmother making candles over a hot kitchen stove, but as an act of arson by forces unknown to stop this one Herrnhuter lay preacher who would not quit preaching.

Like many violent events that for one reason or another go unrecorded and receive interpretations contrary to fact, the blame for the burning of “Mūru krogs” inn was passed to my great-grandmother. She kept the secret by saying nothing. One reason for thinking that she was not to be blamed for the fire is that she is not known to have ever blamed herself for it. The one comment she did make was that her infant son had to be wrapped in a sheepskin for lack of other garments. Apparently it was winter (perhaps before Christmas), because Abiņa is reported to have commented: “He (her son) was wee shivering”.

Grandfather also never blamed his mother for the fire, but collaborated in the lie (my assumption), because if one wished to get ahead in life in those days, one had to be a Lutheran and not a Herrnhuter. Even so, in his approach to everyday living—in spite of becoming a teacher and choir director with kudos, and later the founder and distinguished editor-in-chief of Latvia’s best known newspaper, grandfather ever stayed the lay teacher. One may presume that the latter is the reason why his relationship with the editorial staff of the newspaper and newspaper readers was never that of a cleric vis a vis church members, but a lay leader vis a vis a community. This is not to say that he did not have the occasional role of an intermediary-cleric (laity > cleric > God) between the newspaper staff and publisher, the latter the woman he married in a second marriage when he was past sixty.

That this kind of conflict (Lutheran vs Herrnhuter) may result in a misinterpretation of history is well known to Latvians who until twenty years ago lived in Soviet Latvia. This is to say that if under repressive circumstances one wished to get ahead with a career, at one time one had to be a Lutheran, at another time a Communist Party member.

Unpleasant and self-compromising compromises have dogged both proto-Latvians and their descendants to this day. In the case of the present, the role of the Lutheran clerics—a role the Herrnhuters were opposed to—has been taken over by the Latvian Saeima. In other words, where as the Herrnhuter order of the universe was man and Visums (or God), under the neoChristian order it was man > clergy > God. Today the clergy has been replaced by the parliament (Saeima in Latvian). Not surprisingly, in practice this order becomes that of a partidocratic democracy (=party democracy and/or partial democracy). The frequent observation among the public that the Saeima-Parliament legislates without a vision of a future for Latvia (and refuses to finance a study of alternative possibilities) is proof par excellence that the government at this time is an institution that exists only for the sake of itself and the interests of its lobbies.

The Pyrrhic victory (at least from my point of view) of the Lutheran church over the Herrnhuters in the 1860s had immediate and unanticipated consequences. Having brought proto-Latvians to self-consciousness, the repression of the Herrnhuters did not automatically effect the squelching of nascent nationalism and the repressors’ (tsarist Russia, German barony, Lutheran clergy) victory. Indeed, the repression turned into something of a paradox: the awakened proto-Latvians could be appeased (and fooled) only by replacing the numerous German pastors with Latvian pastors. Thus, we are now told that it was the Lutheran clergy that had such an important role in the development of national consciousness in Latvia.

Let us now return to our proto-Latvian story, which is a parable of the proto-Latvian Children of Johns become a fairy tale. It brings us once again to the subject of mimesis as desire, a very strange desire indeed, one which causes us to go hang ourselves over and over again.

The Story of Crazy Jane and Clever John, Part 2 as retold by

© Eso Anton Benjamins (…story begins at blog 15)

On the seventh day of the journey, Clever John—even as he came close to the foothills of Sun Mountain—was to see a most unusual sight.

As Clever John and Rozinante galloped through forests and meadows toward the Sun, they went past a huge oak tree. The tree may have been a thousand or more years old. Its branches were thick and long. Resting on one branch that stuck way out was a ladder, and from the branch hung many nooses. All the nooses were filled, and from them hung many men and women.

As Clever John and Rozinante both stopped (no doubt somewhat taken aback by the sight), an ever greater surprise awaited them. The nooses around the necks of those hung loosened up as if by themselves, and the bodies of the men and women fell to the ground.

The bodies lay in a heap for quite a while, but then, unexpectedly, they began to stir and soon stood up. Everyone then went back to the ladder and stood in line to climb back up to the branch. One of the men came by Clever John, who greeted him.

“I am appalled by what I see,” said Clever John to the man.

“Don’t be so, Clever John. It will happen to you, too.”

“I dare say ‘never’,” answered Clever John.

“Time will tell, Clever John,” answered the man. “Nevertheless, you look to me like the heroic type, which is a sign that fame awaits you”.

“You believe that I should consider it?” asked Clever John as he tried to imagine the situation.

“There is yet plenty of time for it, Clever John,” said the man, “But tell me, where are you going?”

“I am going up Sun Mountain to meet the Sun. For five days she has hid her face. I want to find out what the problem is.”

“Ah, Clever John,” then said the man, “I beg you to ask Her for how much longer we must keep hanging ourselves?”

“Glad to do you the favor,” answered Clever John.

Asterisks & Links of Interest

Unchanged Feature: The Witches of Ghana in Gambaga

http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/collection/other_last_will.html

Could we have the word and name of Ghana pronounced as Yana? If so, we could then call the withches Yanas (Janas, Zhenas) of Yana (Jana, Zhena).

Unchanged Feature: What is reality, what is myth?

http://www.voltairenet.org/article167588.html

Changing Feature: In the preceding posts, we started a compilation of a series of video clips, which when seen as a linear sequence tell a story in a discernibly telling context. Note what is happening around you. Put this clip as a tail to your blog http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_994351&v=6pgRUpDDrb0 so others may see. The origin of this post is at http://the4thawakening.blogspot.com/  This is the 6^th video of a series.

Posted by Jaņdžs at 2:57 AM 0 comments

Full or partial entries of my blogs may be found at LatviansOnline http://latviansonline.com/forum/ + Forum Home + Open Forum – The 4th Awakening. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/, http://melnaysjanis.blogspot.com/, http://the-not-voter.blogspot.com/ or http://the4thawakening.blogspot.com/

I suggest you look at the links imbedded in these blogs or at the end of the blog as an integral part of my argument.

The 4^th Awakening

20 Clever John as Fearless Man (3)

Latvian folklore if not a myth is nevertheless misplaced in its role in Latvian history, because at some point in its history [the one associated with the “New Latvians” and “New Current” movements (1850-1905)] folklore became a fetish. The reason for projecting folklore as fetishism arose from the need to anchor rising nationalist sentiments to an entity that supported nationalist claims that proto-Latvians (in the future proper and orthodox Latvians) belonged to a unique folklore oriented culture.

Unfortunately, the need for cultural uniqueness clashed with neo-Christianity’s pursuit (prosecutorial style) of hegemony over Eastern Europe. Though it would have been accurate and appropriate to ground the uniqueness of proto-Latvians in their language (sans fetishistic folklore) and arch-Christian Children of Johns communities, the nationalists ran into neo-Christian objections. The objections were centered on Lutheran dogma, which objected to the Herrnhuter movement’s unexpected compatibility with a long repressed religious orientation of proto-Latvians in Livonia.

As pointed out in earlier blogs (start with blog 1), the Latvian language is pietistic in nature, pietism becoming manifest in the ability of the language to endow with subjective charisma every noun and sometimes verb.  While this facility of the Latvian language is repressed by today’s public media, it remains alive and well under private circumstances. For example, it is not unusual to hear a Latvian describe a pot (katls) as katlinjsh. Katlinjsh, when properly translated, comes with the prefix “dear”, thus, dear pot (not potty as an all too literate version might have it); or the word son translates better as “dear son”, not sonny. Moreover, pietism is not as the link would have it, a Lutheran movement of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, which identification restricts its meaning (and has a number of forerunners), but a meme or populist attitude mirrored in many languages, the Latvian language in particular.

Interestingly, pietism was a distinct feature of the Herrnhuter movement. The Herrnhuters originated among the so-called heretics, who were repressed by secularist dictated neo-Christendom. Since heretics were all arch-Christians, that is to say ancient Christians, their pietism was not linked to Phillip Jacob Spender (the German pietist), but to the very languages that the arch-Christian movements sprang from. This is the reason why proto-Latvians found the Herrnhuters so amenable to their mentality. While the Herrnhuters were repressed by the Lutherans, Herrnhuter anti-clericalism is a descendant of languages and a populist meme of the distant past. As the author of “MedievalHeresy”, Malcolm Lambert states so insightfully: “Perhaps the durability of… heresy was due in the last resort to its appeal to this submerged reasoning piety, the beliefs of laymen who had their own devotional life…. among the multifarious causes of heresy, this body of largely hidden sentiment has been one of the underestimated forces in Medieval Church history.” (See 3^rd ed., p. 305)

As I have pointed out throughout, the Children of Johns communities go back to the times of the Cathars of Languedoc and similar communities of the time. However, I disagree with Lambert and other researchers of medieval “heresy” that said has its origins in some mysterious source of religious opposition to an established Church (beginning about the 9^th or 10^th century). Rather, I take the view, that this was a time when secular interests (barons, princes, etc.) found arch-Christianity (called “primitive Christianity” by Lambert) in the way of the self-centered interests of secular powers ready to do violence to achieve their ends. To better control the lay population (aka populists), said princes sought to impose on native beliefs a class of clerics, which would take religion away from the natives and place them with the Pope or similar institution, in our own time the academia.

Living a parallel life to the proto-Latvian heretics, influencing their uniquely proto-Latvian orientation, was also the so-called Sun cult, connecting the Children of Johns to very ancient times indeed. While the Sun cult is reminisced in Latvian folklore only dimly [Folk song: Mother Sun climbed the mountain/ with her apron raised;/ whenever she let her apron drop,/ silver spilled from it. Saules māte kalnā kāpa,/ Priekšautiņu pacēlusi;/ Kur nolaida priekšautiņu,/ Tur pabira sudrabiņš.], a story that illustrates Her former formidable powers is reflected in

The Story of Crazy Jane and Clever John, Part 2 as retold by

© Eso Anton Benjamins (…story begins at blog 15)

Much as they began their journey with a whoosh, Clever John and his mare Rozinante did not arrive at Sun Mountain in one day. If it took Clever John riding a lame mare three days to come to The Old Witch’s Inn and it was the fourth day that they fled it, it was on the eve of that fourth day—for all the speed provided by the mare’s new boots—that Clever John arrived at the river called Ahdere (Styx in Greek).

Soon after Clever John crossed Ahdere, he cane to a tall tree. A raven sat in the tree and cawed: “Hello, Clever John. Where are you going?”

“I am going to Sun Mountain to see the Sun.”

“Caw, caw, Clever John,” crowed the raven, “when you meet the Sun, ask Her for how long I must sit glued to this tree.”

“I will,” said Clever John always helpful.

Clever John bedded down that night in a hay stack. He slept well even though the night was short. Being only the 2^nd day after midsummer or Johns Day the night was only a few hours long. Perhaps that is why Clever John heard no wolves howl. He saddled Rozinante and rode on.

Late in the day, Clever John came to a sea where a fish of enormous size was flipping its tail back and forth and making waves. “Why are you making such waves,” asked Clever John, “I see no crickets about.”

“Hello, Clever John. Where are you going?” asked the big big fish.

“I am going to Sun Mountain to see the Sun.”

“When you meet Her, ask for how long am I to be tied to the shore. I will tell you about the crickets when you come back this way again.”

On the sixth day, Clever John came to yet another river. As he approached it, he saw a woman standing in the river dipping a bucket in the river for water. The curious thing was that every time the woman lifted a bucket full of water, she immediately poured it back in the river again again. Wishing to find out what was it was about, Clever John approached the woman. To his surprise discovered that it was Crazy Jane.

“By the boots of the Devil, Crazy Jane,” said Clever John, “I thought that you were dead.”

“The Devil’s children always come back to life, Clever John,” answered Crazy Jane. “If you wish to know why I am doing this, I will tell you.”

“Of course I want to know,” answered Clever John. “It seems to me that what you are doing is a rather dumb thing.”

“I am punished for telling you my mother’s secrets,” said Crazy Jane. “That was truly dumb of me. Still, when you get to meet the Sun, ask her for how long She plans to keep me sleepless and doing this.”

“You’re in one hell of a fix,” answered Clever John, “because I bet you would rather be with me. All the same, I will ask,” he promised.

Clever John then crossed the river, but even as he was crossing it, he noticed that it was the same Ahdere that he had crossed before. Apparently, this was but another bend in the river. Clever John imagined this was because the Other Side (or Vinju Saule as the proto-Latvians called it) had many crossings, and that there were many ways to get to meet the Sun.

The next morning, Clever John saw that Crazy Jane was indeed still standing in the river and dipping for water. Clever John felt badly and before riding off told her: “I will do what I can, Crazy Jane. I am sure that the Sun will listen to me and release you from your labor.”

“I will be waiting for you, Clever John,” answered Crazy Jane, “I always knew that you have a kind heart”.

Asterisks & Links of Interest

Unchanged Feature: The Witches of Ghana in Gambaga

http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/collection/other_last_will.html

Could we the name of Ghana pronounced as Yana, because then the withches could be called Yanas (Janas, Zhenas) of Yana (Jana, Zhena)?

Unchanged Feature: What is reality, what is myth?

http://www.voltairenet.org/article167588.html

Changing Feature: In the preceding posts, we started a compilation of a series of video clips, which when seen as a linear sequence tell a story in a discernibly telling context. 

Note what is happening around you. Put this clip as a tail to your blog http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo , then do all you are able to stop the imposition of charisma by means of violence. The origin of this post is at http://the4thawakening.blogspot.com/  This is the 5^th video of a series.

Posted by Jaņdžs at 2:57 AM 0 comments

Full or partial entries of my blogs may be found at LatviansOnline http://latviansonline.com/forum/ + Forum Home + Open Forum – The 4th Awakening. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/, http://melnaysjanis.blogspot.com/, http://the-not-voter.blogspot.com/ or http://the4thawakening.blogspot.com/

I suggest you look at the links imbedded in these blogs or at the end of the blog as an integral part of my argument.

The 4^th Awakening

12 Lihgo, John Whoever !  (1918)

If in 1873 a Latvian artist could still believe that when drawing a representative figure of a Latvian, he could do no wrong by portraying Latvis as John, by 1888 this was no longer true.

Came 1888, the Latvian poet Andrejs Pumpurs published the pseudo epic “Lāčplēsis" (Bear Slayer). Borne on wings of fictitious history (composed 1872-1887), Bear Slayer soon replaced John, Son of the Sun.

The origin of Pumpurs’ Bear Slayer figure is uncertain. While Latvian schoolbooks claim that the origins are to be sought in Latvian folk tales, it is more likely that the folk tale is a variant of mythological figures popular in the middle ages. One such figure appears in Martin Luther’s illustrated Bible, another is an illustration by the famed medieval artist Lucas Cranach. In both instances the figure is named Samson, the Lion Slayer.

Following the example of Pumpurs, another Latvian poet, Rainis, wrote “Uguns un Nakts” (Fire and Night), a play in the sing-song style of Latvian folk songs. The political function of the play, published in 1905, was to confirm Bear Slayer (see Prologue) as a true figure of Latvian mythology. Because Rainis was a member of the Socialist Democratic Workers Party, he, like Pumpurs, had little use for the religious notions of Latvian pa-yans (pagans). Pumpurs, an officer in the Tsars army, who fought against the Turks alongside the Serbs, was declared by Rainis to be a Latvian “peoples’ soldier”. Thus, it came to be that on the symbolic level the first Bear Slayer Medal of Honor (Lāčplēša ordenis) was awarded by a poet to a poet, by Rainis to Pumpurs.

Rainis subtitles his play “old songs sung to new melodies”. In fact, the play is anything but an old song. The name of John or Johns (Jahnis in Latvian) does not make an appearance. Instead, the Bear Slayer is Pumpurs’ and Rainis’ version of the German Siegfried.

As soon as Bear Slayer is invented, he makes haste to take John’s place. This happens with less ado than when Jacob tricks Esau http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esau out of his birthright. All that is remembered of Johns by Pumpurs is “Lihgo”. Indeed, Pumpurs has Bear Slayer and Laimdota (Good Fortune) marry—would you believe it?—on Johns Day without John ever being mentioned. Instead of the name of “John”, we hear “Lihgo” and “Lihga”.*

Privileged by hindsight, we see today that though Bear Slayer had the brawn to jump on the wagon of history (however Pumpurs-Rainis, et al perceived the trend of events at the time), it did not take long for the cart to spill Bear Slayer into a ditch.

In terms of long-term history, Bear Slayer, a man not reluctant to use violence, brought with him disaster. Not that this was perceived at the time of Bear Slayer’s creation. The failed Revolution of 1905 was nursed back to health by the intelligentsia using as salve not words of love, patience, and wisdom, but words full of patriotic gore urging violence. The disconnection between the psyche of the Latvian people (which was and remains embodied in the endearing word) and the intelligentsia was near total.

Following the failed revolution of 1905, the critical mind ought to have perceived that the Latvian “New Current” movement had constructed (on the heels of repressed Herrnhuters) a nationalist monster called “Mythical Historical Narrative”. There ought have occurred a return to the narrative of actual historical events. However, the failed revolution helped the nationalist wagon to uncouple itself from the long-haul train moving toward an educated and critical society. The uncoupled wagon was soon romanticizing violence and hurtling down a sidetrack toward renewed social chaos. The spark that ignited the Pandora’s box of the Western world arrived with the outbreak of WW1 (1914).

Baumanu Kahrlis, the Latvian artist who drew the first Latvian as John (1872) and wrote the Latvian national anthem (also 1872), gives clear evidence that his mind was divided between choosing John or God. Not surprisingly, God was the winner. Since the secularist military forces with neo-Christianity in their tow had succeeded in putting up God (no one quite knew what God was or stood for) as their leader [I am thinking of the Wehrmacht belt buckle on which we read “Gott mit uns” (God with us)]—the secular forces, military or otherwise, could do whatever they wished. Apparently intimidated, Baumanu Kahrlis stopped using the name of John and used the name of God in place of the unknown travelers (see Blog 11).

The repressions encouraged by the Lutheran (and Protestant) zeitgeist guaranteed that the name of John would not recover. The name remained in use only in so far that it identified the midsummer festival as an event specific to Latvians. But because the origin of Johns was wilfully mystified and its sacred function denied, today the festival is little more than a picnic on midsummer’s day. The neo-Christian churches, having blended their respective institutions with those of secular power, deny that they have anything to do with the murder.

The great fortune (or could it be misfortune?) of the nationalists who fell out of their zionationalist wheelbarrow was that they lost consciousness the moment they fell to the road. When the zionationalists recovered consciousness, they did not wish to recall the catastrophe (the long-term social disorder that followed the 1918 declaration of independence) and were only too happy to forget that God had once been known among Latvians (and many other people) by the name of John or Johns. Moreover, the Children of Johns (Jāņu bērni) and their leaders, the latter once known as Krstjans (Krišjāņi) or Keyjohns, too, had by this time lost consciousness of themselves as an organized community.

The Johns whom we once greeted “Good day, John”, and who answered “A good day to you, John, too!”—that John (or Jane-Zhane) was you and me. It was through the murder of these Johns that a trans-nationalist culture was murdered. This is why the holy snake known as “zalkts” (the common grass or garter snake) of the Balts is twisted around itself in a knot of pain to this day. It is not allowed to be itself.

More specifically, the reason “John” was not written across the first Latvian flag was because the tsar, the barons, and the neo-Christian church forbade it. They knew that the Children of Johns were not only loyal to their own community (nation), but transcended it, and could encompass and be encompassed by a much larger entity. In effect, the Children of Johns were proto-Latvians with a mission.

One should not be surprised if the penalty the tsar rendered anyone recollecting the name of the Children of Johns was to send them to Siberia. Of course, by this time the Russian tsar was described as the very opposite of what the name “Ivan” meant to his early forebears. By a process of inverting the sacred into the secular, Ivan the Sacrifice became Ivan Grozny.

The Latvians celebrate their Independence Day on the 18^th of November. As happy as the Latvians may be over their forebears’ success at establishing a space for their community, they remain very much under the sway of supernationalists, political powers who are heirs to the zionationalist abandonment of their forebears’ religious orientation. The worship by the Latvian zionationalists of the superficies of the Latvian language, all the while ignoring the substance of it, is the knot laid across the road and prevents the Latvians of our day to succeed to a better day.

Asterisks & Links of Interest

* Pumpurs, Bear Slayer, Fifth Canto, first 4 lines, re:

Par gadskārtu Līgo nāca/ Savus bērnus apraudzīt -/Tad pa visām latvju ārēm/ Līgo, Līgo skanēja!

Every year Lihgo comes/ to see his children./ Then all over Latvia/ one hears sing Lihgo, lihgo! Etc.

Posted by Jaņdžs at 2:57 AM 0 comments

Full or partial entries of my blogs may be found at LatviansOnline http://latviansonline.com/forum/ + Forum Home + Open Forum – The 4th Awakening. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/, http://melnaysjanis.blogspot.com/, http://the-not-voter.blogspot.com/ or http://the4thawakening.blogspot.com/

I suggest you look at the links imbedded in these blogs or at the end of the blog as an integral part of my argument.

The 4^th Awakening

11 Jahni, Bless Latvia

Not long ago (in blog 7), I mentioned that saying “Labdien, Jahni!” or “Labdien, Žane!”(Good day, John; Good day, Jane) was to address dear God, dear Sun, dear Johns, dear Death, and dear Others, all of them dear at the same time. Wow!

The evolution of such inclusiveness in a word, however, is natural enough. It occurred because the individual who came toward you on the country road could be any of the mentioned. You greeted all who came toward you in a way that none would feel slighted. You said: “Hello, John!” with a certain inflection, with certain background information stored in your mind. A friendly greeting was as obligatory (for your personal safety’s sake) as it was a ritual. Though you hoped that the John coming toward you was not the Father of the Dead (veļi), perhaps you wished it was Laima, the Goddess that gave birth to lady Luck, or a piece of chocolate as the modern Latvians have been taught by advertising to know her.

What is it about John that makes the word so embracing and powerful?

One student and historian of religions, John Allegro, opined that the U sound was ancient and sacred. It makes one think of the Tibetan mantra, the Oum. While at the beginning of writing only consonants were written, the absence of written vowels gave the readers a certain freedoms of how to pronounce the words. Thus, the consonant J, pronounced as Y in many languages, could also be pronounced as J in Jazz, or G in General, or even D in Don or P in Pan. For example, the subject of the word janissary could be a gendarme or a general.  In the course of time this led to considerable confusion of names and meanings.

Let us take, for example the name of Don Juan. There are probably not many people who know that the name of the famous lover, Don Juan, actually means John’s John or, yes, Ghengis Khan. It all depended on which vowel the consonant J or Y or G best lent itself to in your native language--if only the vowels could be written! They could be preceded by a soft or strong J(Y). Thus, “Y(J)a”, “Y(J)e”, “Yi”, “Yu”, “Yo” or why Gengis = Jengis + Khan = Gengis Kjan.

The Latvians have a saying: “Jāņi nāk ar joni”, “the Johns are coming upon us a-jonsing (fast)”. The second time the word Johns is pronounced, it appears as “joni” (yoni). The word “joni” declares that the Johns event (Jāņi) is coming on fast, time is a-racing. The O is pronounced as the O in O la la. No, it is not the female sexual organ in Sanskrit, but it may be the origin of “judze” (mile) if we allow that “fast” translates itself into distance covered.

John, the word, is as flexible as it is numinous. It comes with deep down associations lost to conscious memory. John is to be met as Jahnji, Jean, Johan, Huan, Ivan, Ion, Dion, Dionysius, Don, Xian, Yanki, and more. The name “Yank” comes, by way of “yank”, meaning to pull off the table fast, take away, steal, which was how the Dutch thought of some Americans. I am not sure whether the word started in Amsterdam, Holland or New Amsterdam, i.e., New York.

The versatility of the name John is also notable because it presents itself every time that Latvians sing the Latvian anthem: “Dievs, svētī Latviju!” (God, Bless Latvia!) I do not mean that we sing the name “John” consciously, contrary to the official version. However, if one remembers that God was once addressed as “John”—“Yahnis” in Latvian—in the deep chambers of the brain you could well be singing “Jahni, svehtih Latviju!” (John bless Latvia!) The other name that Latvians could address in their national anthem is the Sun, Saulīte. “Saulīt, svētī Latviju!” (Dear Sun, bless Latvia!)

The versatility and fluidity of the name “Ion”, permits it to metamorphose into many names—zhandarmes, gentlemen,  zhenchina. The cloned human beings of tomorrow will also be heirs of a “gene” (or John, or Jahni). Ion has a unique ubiquity about itself. Here it is Daddy God, here a village drunk, here a saint, here a whore.

Baumanu Kahrlis, the artist who drew the first picture representation of John of Latvia as a priest (memorialized in the “Lihgo” flag), nevertheless, tripped on his way to the composing table and instead of “John, bless Latvia” wrote: “Dievs, svētī Latviju!” How could this contradiction within the poet’s self happen?

Well, historically, the time that the first flag and the national anthem were composed is about the time that the Latvian Herrnhuters and Lutherans were filling the draws of Latvian folk collector Krisjahnis Barons with folk songs in which the addressee is not necessarily the same one as in earlier times, but God replaced Dieviņš, Mara replaces Laima, Peter replaces Perkons, John became Son of God instead Son of the Sun, and some Gods were forgot altogether.

However, deep in the subjective self of a Latvian the word (John, Sun, etc.) has not yet been erased. Thus, it is not all that uncommon (though no investigation of the phenomenon exists) for a Latvian to hear him or herself sing: “Saulīt, svēti Latviju!” (Dear Sun, bless Latvia!). I do not believe that I am the only one who has ever replaced the official words with words that make up the undertow of officialize. The phenomenon first came to my attention a long time ago, when Displaced Persons camps in post-WW2 Europe were the homes of a good many Latvians. I am not saying that such memes of past practices floated up to the listening ear often, let alone were considered an alternative to the official version of the text. However, I am saying that for many Latvians such an overlap of names comes naturally.

Incidentally, the word “saulīte” means “dear sun”. While the “Sun” has lost her divinity status due to the media’s overuse of her name, when spoken as “saulīte” (“dear sun”), it retains its meaning as a term of endearment and a term of address, both.

These days the Latvian Johns Festival is often called “saulgrieži" (solstice) or “lihgo”, the last name being the one sown with a needle and thread across the first Latvian flag. Why is the name of Johns absent?

The reason that “John” or “Johns” are not mentioned is because the tsar forbade the use of a name that was so encompassing in meaning. The neo-Christians agreed with the tsar. “John” was a politically sensitive word; best leave him unmentioned, “Lihgo!” will do. However, when the book was published, even “lihgo” was too closely associated with Johns Songs [Did the Herrnhuters at first use “lihgo” instead of “halleluia”?], and the tsar ordered the books burnt. Only a few copies of it have survived.

Lai līgo lepna dziesma! [Let a proud song lihgo!]

Lai ar Joni Latvija zeļ! [Let Johns bless Latvia!]

Asterisks & Links of Interest

Posted by Jaņdžs at 2:57 AM 0 comments